Arkansas Democratic Party chairman shot; Update: Gwatney dies

posted at 4:45 pm on August 13, 2008 by Allahpundit

A gunman barged into Arkansas’ Democratic Party headquarters today and fired three shots at the party chairman, who officials say is hospitalized in critical condition.

The gunman had asked to speak to party chairman Bill Gwatney. Police say the gunman went past a secretary and started shooting.

Democratic Party officials confirmed that the shooting victim was Gwatney. Little Rock police spokesman Lieutenant Terry Hastings has not released the victim’s ID. Hastings says the suspect was chased by police and was shot and caught in Grant County, and is now confirmed dead. Hastings says it was unclear who shot the suspect.

Moments before the Democratic headquarters shooting, a man with a gun had threatened workers at the Arkansas State Baptist Convention headquarters seven blocks east. Business manager Dan Jordan says a man with a gun told another manager that he’d just lost his job.

The Arkansas Times claims sources “are working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership.” Bob Owens speculated on that earlier, although in that case I’m not sure what the shooter would be doing at Baptist headquarters. Anyway, this reminds me of when some nut went into Hillary’s New Hampshire headquarters last year professing to have a bomb and terrorizing the people inside for a good six hours while the blogosphere waited with bated breath to see what his motive might be. The Narrative was already written and ready to publish; all they needed was confirmation from the cops, which never came because the guy turned out to be a garden variety wacko. Exit quotation: “I wouldn’t read too much into his political affiliation; his main party was of course ‘Crazy.'”

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Comments

Holy crap! I just saw this on Fox! WTF? Now ya gotta have metal detectors in Party offices too? Not to turn this into a 2nd Amendment debate, but if the staff was armed, we’d be reading about how they defended themselves and shot an attacker.

Business manager Dan Jordan says a man with a gun told another manager that he’d just lost his job.
The Arkansas Times claims sources “are working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership.

Tom, did you read this part? Or did you just skip over it, hoping to make this azzhole out to be a Democidal, radical right wing McCain supporting Republican gun nut?

It’s people like you that make people like us have to scramble around to make sure he wasn’t one. Instead of thinking about his family, you think about the political gain you can get out of this.

What a terrible shame. I hope the cops can quickly figure out who the shooter is and why he did this. It won’t do much to help Mr. Gwatney’s family, but it’s important to know if this was just a random freak or someone that had a more specific motive.

And actually, I have to give AP credit after looking back in the archives… he stated his preference for not painting a wide brush on a group of people based on the act of one person.

Others on the site didn’t show such restraint, and were burned by it.

But, but comment was just a response. AP cited the left’s eager anticipation for motive of the guy who shot of the Clinton HQ to be revealed so they could attack the right. I was just cited a time when this site acted in the same way.

The Narrative was already written and ready to publish; all they needed was confirmation from the cop

Or when the you all wrote about the destructive souls of liberals after the Times Square bombing.

Tom_Shipley on August 13, 2008 at 5:05 PM

I thought about this long and hard after you wrote it. Almost all other comments were praying for the victims family. Even though these incidences are apples and oranges (a bombing is more of a statement than a shooting and less personal along with other differences), I went back through the archives for people gloating about this. There weren’t many that I could find. Look for yourselves, there were several threads:

We should pray for the families of the deceased, both of them, the victim and the shooter. Both families will be mourning the loss of a dear loved one. I will also personally pray for the souls of both men.

While the shooter’s act was despicable, he has paid the ultimate price for it with his life. His eternal fate and any forgiveness/punishment that he will receive in the hereafter will completely depend upon his relationship with God. It is between them alone at this point.

“Forgot to add Allah that Michelle Malkin was blamed by the left for this attack.” I didn’t know that Michelle spent any time in Arkansas or would want to spend her life in jail for Gwatney’s end. It shows the endless inanity of the left.